


We Two (Let's Stick Together, Me and You)

by garnettrees



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Adorkable, Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Baby Telepaths, Best Friends, Calm Down Erik, Canon Jewish Character, Charles Is a Big Dorkface, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Childhood, Childhood Friends, Childhood Sweethearts, Elves, Emotionally Constipated Erik, Erik has Feelings, Erik is a Shark, Fae & Fairies, Fan Comics, Fanart, Gen, Hanukkah, Holidays, Illustrations, Implied Child-Abuse, Jewish Holidays, M/M, Magneto's Terrible Fashion Sense, Protective Erik, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-01-03 10:09:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garnettrees/pseuds/garnettrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An (admittedly small) collection of my XMFC fan art and associated ficlets... overwhelmingly Charles/Erik. I know you're not surprised.</p><p>1- "The Hanukkah Mouse" (Alternate Universe, Erik and Charles as grade-schoolers) with 200+ word drabble<br/>2- "When All The World Was Young" (Self-Illustration for "Love Like Winter"; kid!Erik and bb!elf!Charles),<br/>3- "Someday We'll Get It Together (And We'll Get It Undone)"-- de-aged bb!Charles being incorrigible, 1000+ word 'drabble'<br/> </p><p>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Hanukkah Mouse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since I've posted anything in this fandom, I know! Believe me, I am still working on 'Love Like Winter' (and 'Headlong'), and I even have a DoFP-inspired fic I'm trying to clean up. In the interim, have some ridiculously cute elementary school Cherik! (Now complete with a lame drabble-esque exposition! X_x;)

  


_Erik could care less about any stinky old school play, much less a version of The Nutcracker featuring _Emma Frost_ (the terror of Westchester Elementary!) as the Sugarplum Fairy. Bad enough that Erik's best friend is a first grader (practically a _baby_), but then Charles had to get all excited about the project and sign up… really, there are _limits_. Nobody, but nobody, is allowed to give Xavier a hard time about it, though-- unless its Erik himself. So, when Charles gets cast as a minor soldier in the Rat King's army and ends up near tears because Sebastian is relentless butt-head, Erik will not let it lie. Charles doesn't have to put up with that; he can just be the Hanukkah Mouse instead. He makes it up off the top of his head, because he can't stand it when his best friend is all sniffly and blinking those big blue eyes. _

_Charles is hugging the life out of him almost before he's finished the sentence, thrilled to be included in anything that's important to Erik. It's a good thing the kid is so damn cute, honestly. If anyone saw this, Lehnsherr would _never_ live it down. Anyone, that is, aside from his Mom. She's in the kitchen pretending to be busy and radiating that 'you two are adorable!' vibe in such a way that it can probably be seen from space._

_(It's just as well Erik doesn't know she's snapped a picture. It'll be a nice little memory to share years down the road, at the Lehnsherr-Xavier wedding.)_

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charles' mouse costume turned out just how I wanted it, but I'm not that happy with Erik's hair. Edie's gonna take him to get it cut, pronto! ^_^''
> 
> HAPPY HANUKKAH!  
> <3  
> -Meredith


	2. When All The World Was Young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Self-illustration for my story, [Love Like Winter](http://archiveofourown.org/works/650699/chapters/1184166): Erik and Charles, as youths in Chryse Planitia.

  


. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Colored pencil on printer paper. 
> 
> I did this back in December, while I was trying to work myself around my ridiculous year-long writer's block. ^^; Looks like wee!Charles wore Erik out. ;-)


	3. Someday We'll Get It Together (And We'll Get It Undone)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A de-aged Charles still has some very definite opinions about Magneto's fashion choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of ups and downs in my life lately, but I'm very happy to be posting again. I have a new job and, while the training is on-the-job and seat-of-your-pants, I feel like I'm starting to get a handle on things. To celebrate, I have a little sketch I free-handed on my lunch break. My new job is on a stretch of road in what is pretty much a factory and warehouse district, so there aren't a lot of places for me to go. So I usually find some place to tuck myself away for half an hour and read, draw, or work on fic. I definitely know I'm feeling better when I'm doodling again!
> 
> Oh, and the tiny drabble I wrote as backstory mutated into 7kb of fic. X_x'''
> 
> As always, thank you for reading. If I could bother you to leave even the smallest comment, I would be greatly appreciative!

  


  


"Please don't be mad at me, Mr. Erik," the child Charles says, standing barefoot in the loose soil of one of the mansion's seemingly endless gardens. He's soft-spoken, consolatory, and about thirty years younger than he should be. Someone has dressed him in one of those ridiculous cardigans he so favors in 'normal' life-- it's not as if they'd had spare clothes for toddlers lying about. The garment is already falling off one shoulder, the hem just a few inches from dragging in the flower bed. Despite his best efforts, Charles cannot use his tiny body to shield the evidence of his crime. Namely, his attempt to bury the great Magneto's helmet in the soil that once housed Sharon Xavier's prized azaleas. Looking very caught, the pint-sized version of Xavier attempts to shove several fingers in his mouth. It's a nervous habit; he actually chews the skin off the tips if he gets too anxious, something the X-Men have simultaneously tried to prevent and avoided considering too closely. 

"It's a bad old helmet anyway." How does he manage that tone of reasonable discourse, the sole soft spoken voice in a rowdy debate, when he's that small? "It makes it like you're not… there." 

The maddening part, Magneto thinks, is that he _isn't_ angry. Frustrated, a little irritated, frankly tired (the adult Charles has an exuberant personality, but this little slip of a thing will _not_ sit still), but ultimately lulled into irrepressible fondness. It's a feeling unique to Xavier-- Erik can't fathom responding this way towards anyone else, and could never have imagined it prior to their meeting in those chill, dark Miami waters. His own Brotherhood is no longer astonished by his occasional lengthy and verbose tirades about the Professor's willful disregard of past history, political theory, and Machiavellian psychology (to name a few)-- but Erik can damn the man in one breath and kiss him in the next. 

Not now-- or at least, not in the way he's accustomed to. Right now, thanks to Hank's scientific enthusiasm (Magneto feels another lecture coming on-- this one in regards to proper protocols for lab experiments), Charles is approximately three years old.  
"Three and a half," a high, sweet voice informs him. It is saved from being imperious by the boy's frankly cherubic face, and the muffled effect from the finger he still has in his mouth. Those astonishing eyes, blue like some artist's dream of the ocean, peer up at him. Big, deceptively innocent, but not without their small shadows of fear.  
 _'Ei, Großmutter, was hast du für große Augen!'_ , a faded voice murmurs in the metal-bender's mind, and none is more surprised then the man himself. On the heels of astonishment follows the trepidation-- he won't call it _dread_ \-- he experiences at any stirring of his shadowed, seemingly theoretical childhood. It always seems to have happened to someone else, and it gives him a strange sense of doubleness he doesn't like. 

He's been holding that azure gaze the whole time, and now the beginnings of tears are welling up. This Charles doesn't catch and translate the thought the way the adult version could, but he's definitely picked up on the emotions. This little boy's telepathy comes in fits and bursts; unpredictable, uncontrollable, and something he seems yet to have put into context. Sometimes it's as though he can't tell the difference between speech and thought, or as though he's dizzied by too much input. It will be a while, Erik knows from their long chess conversations, before this boy realizes that he is different, and that 'different' does not mean 'crazy'. 

  


Awkwardly, Lehnsherr kneels before the child. He can't help it-- he'd thought _Sean_ was ridiculously young when they recruited him-- but Charles has taken to him anyway. Whole-heartedly, without judgement, and with an alacrity that seems a great consternation to the others. Erik won't lie and say that doesn't give him a small measure of satisfaction. The moment his arms part in even the suggestion of welcome, Charles is in them, throwing those tender little arms about Magneto's neck. 

"I'm not angry, _liebchen_ ," he says, the already surreal morning sharpened by just how small and _breakable_ this Charles is. Like a little reed; all that ferocious thirst for knowledge and peaceably politic heart wrapped up in a form more vulnerable than ever. "But I do need my helmet, so I must ask you not take it again." 

  


He doesn't need to see his miniature Xavier to know the boy is making a face. Using his own power, he easy pulls his helmet free and shakes off the dirt, making it twist and turn in midair. Peeking out from the little burrow he's made in Erik's embrace, Charles laughs delightedly. 

"I suppose," he says a moment later, pronouncing the word with contentious completeness. He's such a polite little thing-- 'Mr. Erik', indeed. "But I like you better without it." 

  


How much of this will Charles remember, once (and damn you, Hank, if you're not slaving over a solution _right_ _now_) he's been restored to his natural form? Lehnsherr can't imagine integrating those memories easily, even with the benefit of telepathy. Will it seem like a dream, or vanish altogether? 

Since Erik has never flinched from risk, he says, "I like it better without it, too." With a vague wave of his hand, he sends the offending helmet up the relatively short distance to an open window on the second floor-- the room he has temporarily reclaimed. "But you cannot live in this world without fighting, and you cannot go into battle unprepared." 

Before the boy can answer, Erik sweeps him up, holding him easily in the crook of one arm whilst capturing those abused fingers with his other hand. They're wet with saliva, nails bitten to the quick, bleeding a little where the skin has split. 

  
"And you say _I_ have an oral fixation," he jokes hollowly, burying thoughts of violence against those already safely dead far from where this little one might see. "Let's go in and bandage these." 

"Very well," his charge agrees, with regal gravitas. Charles lays his head against the join of Erik's neck and shoulder, in the very same place the grown Professor favors. Warm breath puffs against the man's clavicle; he smells the softness of youth, the faintest whiff of _Charles_ , and an abundance of strawberry-scented bubble bath the boy apparently pilfered from Raven's old stash. 

  


He's like the smallest matryoshka doll in a set, Magneto thinks as he heads back towards the house. G-d save him from considerations of sentiment, but if he should think of this boy with fondness after the relief of having the Professor back-- well. That is how Lehnsherr will picture the little imp, too, as nestled inside the wonderfully complex man he knows. He wants the real Charles back more than anything; wants his friend, lover, brother and adversary embodied in one maddeningly mortal tangle. 

  
Perhaps it's atavistic or overly picturesque, but it still pleases him greatly to think that, in some small way, every iteration of Charles is his.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _'Ei, Großmutter, was hast du für große Augen!'-_ "Grandmother, what big eyes you have!"; Rothkäppchen by the Brothers Grimm (1837)  
>  *title from Nina Simone's "Ooh Child"


End file.
